Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a management system for an information processing device, particularly relates to a distributed management technique thereof.
Description of the Related Art
A “management system for an information processing device” is a system that causes a host computer to monitor a plurality of information processing devices via a network, so as to maintain the information processing devices. Examples of the information processing devices to be managed (hereinafter, also referred to as a “device”) include a printer, a copier, a multifunction peripheral (MFP), a personal computer (PC), or a server-dedicated device. A host computer (hereinafter, referred to as a “center host” as a management administrating body may be, for example, a PC, a server-dedicated device, or a main frame computer. When any of the devices encounters a malfunction such as: out-of-paper, out-of-toner, out-of-ink, or paper jam; or an illegal access such as a computer virus and phishing, the center host detects the abnormality and reports it to an administrator.
As a network technology as represented by the Internet has been widely used, the number of devices to be managed by one management system is continuously increasing. Along with this, a burden on the center host is becoming excessive.
As a method to decrease the burden on the center host, a technique of introducing a distributed management to the management system is known (refer to JP 2012-133571 A1, for example). With this technique processing for device management is distributed to a plurality of management apparatuses. The management apparatus monitors allocated devices alone. If abnormality is found in any of the devices, the management apparatus notifies the center host of the abnormality. With this, the center host need not directly monitor the device, decreasing the burden thereof.
On the other hand, however, a difference of burden is likely to occur among the management apparatuses. The more the number of devices, the difference is likely to increase, in particular. When this difference is excessive, the required amount of resources varies greatly among the management apparatuses. This is not preferred in view of costs.
As a method for equalizing the burden among the management apparatuses, there is a known technique for dynamically changing allocation of the devices for the management apparatuses according to varying burden on the management apparatus (refer to JP 2006-260216 A1, for example).
Distributed management of devices in a management system assumes that dynamic allocation of the devices for the management apparatus is to be implemented by an information processing apparatus (hereinafter, referred to as an “allocation apparatus”). The types of processing to be performed by the allocation apparatus mainly include the following four: (A) Identifying devices on a network to detect a new device; (B) Monitoring the management apparatuses and based on the state of each of the apparatuses, evaluating the burden on each of the apparatuses; (C) When a new device has been detected, or variation in the burden among the management apparatuses becomes excessive, changing the allocation of the devices to each of the management apparatuses according to the burden on the management apparatus; and (D) Transmitting, to the management apparatus, identification information on all devices newly allocated to each of the management apparatuses. Repeating in high speed these processing (A) to (D) by the allocation apparatus can maintain equality of the burden among the management apparatuses.
Along with the further increasing number of devices in the management system, however, it has become highly possible that the allocation apparatuses for the above-described processing (A) to (D) will be placed at increased risk of an excessive burden. The reason is as follows. First, the more the number of devices, the less equal the burden among the management apparatuses. It is therefore highly frequent to be in a situation where allocation of the devices for the management apparatuses needs to be changed. Next, the more the number of devices, the more the frequency of changes in the connection state between the device and the network. Furthermore, many recent networks use dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) to dynamically allocate an address to a device. Therefore, the more the number of devices, the more frequently their addresses change. Therefore, in order to maintain equality of the burden among the management apparatuses regardless of the increase in the number of devices, the allocation apparatus is required to further speed up the processing (A) to (D). Along with the increasing number of devices, however, the burden on the allocation apparatus increases, particularly for processing that constantly keeps identifying all devices on the network, and for processing that transmits the identification information on all of devices newly allocated to each of the management apparatuses each time the allocation is changed. As a result, further acceleration of the processing (A) to (D) may place the allocation apparatus at increased risk of an excessive burden.